A minor breakthrough

Dom FINALLY peed on the toilet yesterday afternoon! It was only a little bit, and most went on the rim of the toilet or on the floor, but he did it all the same. (Immediately afterward, he said, "Now I can go to preschool!" Um, not quite.) Then he peed while standing in front of the sink, and a few minutes later, he peed about a gallon into his new diaper. Oh well! I'll take it. The good thing is that he's become much more receptive to the idea of sitting on the toilet, even asking to get out of the bath last night so he could do it again. We still have miles to go, but he's finally taken his first step.

Another week goes by...

Two major projects are consuming our lives right now: the basement remodel and Dom's toilet training. By far the easier of the two is the basement. At least we're seeing some progress downstairs! So far, we've had NOTHING where toilet training is concerned. Not a drop, and preschool is less than two months away. At this rate, I'm beginning to wonder whether he'll be able to start kindergarten! It doesn't matter what incentive we offer: Dominick just has no interest in using the toilet.

But the basement project is rolling along, though it's not the sexy work that's being done, just things like moving plumbing and gas lines and clearing out more junk. (I made another trip to Goodwill today.) Still, I'm excited that we have actual light in our laundry room now, and the dryer has finally been moved out of the awkward angled position it's occupied for years.

During the course of demolition and purging, we found a few interesting items in our basement. The previous owner, or rather his daughter, who owned the house after he died, left the basement (and garage) full of nothing useful. I'd have a more extensive list if we hadn't previously trashed or donated loads and loads of stuff.

• Dog tag for Wrigley
• Label from the original owner's gun display downstairs
• A tiny scrap of the Post-Dispatch with an article about President Eisenhower's tribute to Ernie Pyle
• Schnucks spring water, expiration date December 1989
• Genuine four-leaf clover





• Box of yellow and black plastic wall tile--nice!


• Scrap of the kitchen's original linoleum floor
• Dead snake

We have a tooth!

It's barely showing, but I can see and feel it. For once, Noel has hit a milestone earlier than Dominick, whose first tooth came at nine months. Now for crawling and sitting up...I'll keep you posted.

Our nephew Seth is here for the weekend. This morning, the three older boys went to the Missouri Botanical Garden. They all got wet playing in the fountains, which must have been a sight. Tonight, after the little boys' baths, we did some fireworks in the backyard. This time Noel was with us. He did NOT like it at all. Good thing we didn't drag him to a big fireworks display Wednesday night!

Seth, Noel and Dominick

Time for Noel's monthly photo. As expected, he wasn't content to sit still and leave the sign alone, but I managed to get some good shots. (That's drool on the chair, by the way.) Overall, it went better than his session earlier today at JCPenney. He was getting tired--their fault for being 30 minutes late starting--and clearly constipated, not to mention teething, so it wasn't a good combination. But again, he couldn't help giving us some good pictures, just not as many as before.